Votes For Women Pennant

 

Votes For Women, circa 1900’s
Rare Paper Suffrage Pennant

Pennant size: (HxL) 3 ¼”x 13 ½”
Frame size:    (HxL) 10” x 20”

Women’s National Suffrage movement “Votes For Women” pennant, printed in black letters on yellow paper - the sunflower yellow color is often the color most associated with the women’s movement in America. The pennant is pressure mounted and displayed in a beautiful carved vintage wood frame in an antique gold and black finish.

Suffrage paper pennants are rare and highly sought-after, the very few pennants, such as this one, that have survived through the years in such good condition, are exceptionally rare.

The Women’s suffrage movement began to take shape and organize in the 19th Century. The First Civil and Political Rights of Women Convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton who drafted the “Declaration of Sentiments” which included a provision for extending the right to vote for women. The Women’s Suffrage began as a state-by-state campaign with masses of mainly women demanding political equality and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. However, it was realized early on the only way to grant all women the right to vote would require an amendment to the Constitution, and so the legal battle that would prove to be long and difficult and take many decades to accomplish had began. Amendments to the Constitution were introduced to congress in 1878 and 1914, both times failing to pass due to having less than the two-thirds majority required to pass in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

On August 26th 1920 Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution granting women the right to vote. The Amendment reads “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex”. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The legal battle would not end there due to discriminatory state voting laws against African Americans and other minority women that remained well into the 20th century.

Condition is excellent for period slight imperfections throughout, staining on left side mid- bottom; 5-6 pin-size ink stains left of VOTES, a small nick on the top left; slight crease on the right end fly

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Item: 19-21-06